Politics! Antonio Salieri’s comic opera Cublai, Gran Kan de’ Tartari, though notionally set in faraway Cathay, in truth spoofs the follies of courts in Europe, and St. Petersburg in particular. When war broke out between Austria and the Turks in 1787, Joseph II called off the premiere to avoid offending his ally the Czar. And thus it was that Cublai lay in a drawer for 237 years—a fact to break the heart of anyone who has ever gone poking around Salieri’s fascinating, multifaceted, woefully neglected opera catalogue. In 2007, a spectacular recital album by the soprano Diana Damrau offered premiere performances of pyrotechnically dazzling excerpts from the score. Now, the conductor Christophe Rousset gives it its first full hearing. We gather that the director Martin G. Berger is taking a liberty or two; the cast list includes a character by the name of the composer. —Matthew Gurewitsch